


morning without you is a dwindled dawn

by coatsandjumpers



Category: Far Cry 4
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Spoilers, i've reached the final stage of desperation, there's so little pajay i had to write it myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3821734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coatsandjumpers/pseuds/coatsandjumpers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pagan Min doesn't do romantic sunrises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	morning without you is a dwindled dawn

Ajay loves mornings in Kyrat. 

In America, the God-forsaken hours before sunrise were painful and waking up felt like bone deep exhaustion and the weary consciousness of being. Kyrat feels different, Ajay thinks, leaning lightly against the wooden railing of the palace’s balcony. In the breathless hours of dawn, the rumble of cars leaving and returning to the palace grounds is absent. The servants have yet to wake and for now, their shouts are replaced by a fragile silence. Peering through the fog, Ajay can just make out the outline of the mountains and valleys he knows are there.

Ajay shifts suddenly to turn his back on the view, instead facing a slightly disheveled Pagan. 

“Isn’t this supposed to be a beautiful, romantic sunrise that we’re spending together?” Ajay says, amused as he watches Pagan make his own mountains and valleys with fine white powder before methodically cutting lines with practiced hands. Pagan doesn’t respond for a moment, pausing briefly before snorting one of the lines. His eyes close and his head kicks back as the drugs hit, the rush comfortable and familiar. 

Leaning back in his chair, Pagan smiles, equally amused. 

“Ajay, you know I’m not a morning person. I’ve got to do something to stay awake.”

Ajay resists the urge to make some wisecrack about concerning drug habits, knowing Pagan will simply respond by asking “Didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners, boy?”.

Sometimes, Ajay wonders how mornings like this became his life. If he thinks about it for too long, the familiarity begins to feel foreign and Ajay starts asking questions he doesn’t really want the answers to. So, for the most part, he’s content to stand at the far end of the balcony, ignoring a perfectly good view in favor of watching Pagan do lines of coke. 

Still, Ajay entertains the notion of returning to America sometimes, briefly imagines being able to order fast food burgers and not having to hear gunshots daily. But Pagan had been right. Scattering his mother’s ashes cut the last tie to his old self. His past life feels hazy and distant and Ajay knows there’s no going back. That world isn’t his world anymore, and besides, he can’t reconcile the relative normalcy of American life with all he’s seen of Kyrat, can’t return to a world without Pagan. 

Ajay knows that, if he asked, Pagan would buy him a one-way flight to America in an instant, probably spending more money than necessary on a first class seat and other in-flight luxuries. Ajay also knows that if he leaves, he leaves Kyrat without an heir and with a ruler who will probably channel his feelings about Ajay’s absence into coke lines while Yuma, Noore, and De Pleur run the country. Ajay should stay because Kyrat needs him to. 

It’s a nice reason, Ajay thinks, a noble reason, but it’s not why he’s still here in Kyrat. Altruism has never been Ajay’s cardinal trait, and as much as Ajay would love to say he’s staying in Kyrat, this forgotten shithole of a nation, because he wants to help stop the illicit drug trade and build up legitimate industries and create economic stability and finally, finally bring some peace to Kyrat’s poor citizens, it’s not the truth. 

The truth is that Ajay’s reasons for staying are all wrapped up in the pajama-clad person currently sitting in front of him and doing cocaine at six in the morning. It should probably worry Ajay that he’s making major life decisions based off a guy with questionable drug habits and even more questionable morals. He should’ve scattered his mother’s ashes and then run like hell, preferably to a place where his life wasn’t seriously in danger every other day. At this point though, after his brief affair with terrorism and his even briefer affair with Sabal, Ajay figures he should really stop judging the mental health of his significant others, as clearly everyone in Kyrat is fucking insane. 

Ajay knows he isn’t impervious to Kyrat’s unique brand of madness, knows he succumbed to the craziness of the crab rangoon and the gold statues and the pink suits. His relationship with Pagan could hardly be defined as sane. He imagines, with amusement, the horror any given American would hold for Ajay’s current love life. Pagan is old enough to be his father and arguably actually might be his step-father or something. Strangely, Ajay feels far removed from judgment; in Kyrat, anything goes. He hopes that’s because he’s somehow matured enough as a person to transcend pressuring social norms and not because he’s pretty sure the last servant who said something rude about Ajay and his relationship with Pagan was executed. Ajay really, really hopes it’s not the latter. Still, no matter what people say, Ajay trusts Pagan to always see him and not Ishwari, trusts Pagan to not be that fucked up when it comes to their relationship. 

Besides, Pagan’s plenty fucked up in other ways. He’s not usually one to talk about the past, preferring to leave those dark stories in corners where they don’t have to be told. But one night, a lot of cocaine, even more alcohol, and some fucking amazing sex left Pagan strangely vulnerable and more inclined to tell the truth. Sitting in the bedroom, traces of white dust floating through the air, Pagan had started talking, sending small half-glances in Ajay’s direction to judge his reaction. 

Ajay has trouble imagining Pagan as a teenager. Really, he has trouble imagining what Pagan was like before Lakshmana. Ajay wonders what man went to Lakshmana’s shrine that one time, because the man who came out is the only Pagan that Ajay knows, the only Pagan that Ajay can imagine existing. Still, Ajay supposes even Pagan must have been young once, although his childhood left little room for innocence. 

Pagan isn’t looking for pity, isn’t telling Ajay all this in some attempt to buy sympathy. But the sadness Ajay feels for Pagan is inevitable. God knows Ajay’s family isn’t exactly the ideal example of healthy relationships, but at least Ajay had his mother. Pagan had nothing but his ambition, and when he told Ajay the story of his past, Ajay spent a few minutes trying to determine if Pagan had killed his father. He remembers he had opened his mouth to ask before realizing the answer wouldn’t change anything, so why bother? Ajay had gone to sleep that night with his head on Pagan’s chest, the room quiet and still. 

A loud cough startles Ajay back to the present. 

“Drifting off are we?” Pagan asks, tone lightly teasing. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Ajay responds. “You’re the old man. We should probably make sure you’re not getting Alzheimer’s or something.” 

As expected, Pagan tsks and comments on atrocious manners. By now, the sun has risen and the fog from before has collected into dew drops on every available surface. The sky is turning a brilliant blue as the palace stirs, the clamor increasing by the minute. 

Ajay is not a fool. He knows what horrors take place under Pagan’s rule, knows that Kyrat is far from saved. But for now, Ajay is unwilling to break the spell of the morning, and he kisses Pagan, content to leave the politics for later in the day. 

Kyrat could fall to the tigers and the terrorists, but Ajay has some strange, unshakeable belief that the two of them will be okay. Religion has never been Ajay’s cup of tea, and this kind of faith is new to him. It’s a comfort, stability in a country that has none. Ajay has felt volatile for as long as he can remember, and it is only now, in the midst of the most dangerous, devastated country he has ever visited, that he feels something like peace settle in him. Breaking away from Pagan to breathe, Ajay lets the last vestiges of the still morning fade away, secure in the knowledge that there will be hundreds more to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I ever write anything before one in the morning? Basically, I'm Pagan and Pajay trash. [Adjourn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/adjourn/pseuds/adjourn) is a terrible person. This is literally 100% your fault.


End file.
